CHAPTER I.

THE ADVENT.

§ 223.

With the abnormal moral and physical economy of the world is closely connected the central fact of history, the advent of the Christ.

The principle and motive of the advent is not to be found in either term to the exclusion of the other, neither in man alone, nor in God alone; but inasmuch as the Son of God enters the world by becoming man, the principle of the advent is to be found in both terms, in the reciprocal connection between God and man; in each, however, it is to be studied under a twofold aspect.

God sustains a twofold relation to the Adamic race. The one is original, and in principle ideal, constituted by the creative word forming man after His image. The other is the actual, contra-ideal relation, brought about by the realization of sin in the personality and history of man.

Man in like manner sustains a twofold relation to God: a relation prevailing by virtue of the fact that he is created after the divine image, and a relation entailed by the voluntary transgression of the laws of his nature and of the teleology of his creation.

In order to form a biblical conception of the advent we shall have to emphasize these two terms, God and man, each in its reciprocal connection with the other, and each under a twofold view, the ideal and the actual.

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§ 224.

The advent is in the first instance referable to God. In a subordinate sense it is referable also to man; referable to both, the personal Creator and the personal creature, in their reciprocal vital connection. Therefore the advent is not an afterthought, not a supplement of the first creation; it is anticipated by the divine idea of the world.

1. The advent is referable to God; not merely to God's sovereignty, nor to the attribute of mercy; but to the triune God Himself, to His life of love; and it is to be referred to God as He is related to man in the idea of creation. The divine idea anticipates an actual development of the world from an inchoate beginning, through a succession of kingdoms, a history in time, and a given teleology. The proximate end of the creative process from below upward was the primeval man, the first Adam; the ultimate end of the primeval man, and through him the end of the entire creative work, was the ideal Man, the last Adam. Conformably to the logic of universal history grounded in the divine idea of creation which under the direction of Providence is in process of normal actualization, the Christ comes into the world.

2. The advent is referable to man, not merely to the guilt of his fallen state, not merely to his aspirations after harmony and communion with God, but to his nature and his original vocation. To man's nature in its original relation to God the advent is referable by virtue of the fact that human personality is formed in God's image. The position which man occupies as head and

11 Cor. xv. 45.

crown of the economy of the world, his vocation to be the organ of harmony between sub-human kingdoms and God, and his capacities for a nobler, a far more exalted communion, latent in his personal constitution, look forward to the glorification of his being by an uplifting into the realm of the divine existence. Man as man, apart from his sinfulness and misery, demands a transition from the lower to a higher plane of life, a transition from his original actual state in the domain of the natural and earthly into another, a transcendent state in the domain of the spiritual world.' Conformably to this profound human demand, a demand which is the outcome of God's own eternal purpose actualized in man's creation, God moves from heaven toward earth, descending in the person of His Son into the organic depths of humanity.

3. As the advent is not to be referred to God alone nor to man alone, so neither may it be referred to God and man externally associated. The ground of the advent is to be seen in both as connected by the economy of creation. It is referable to God as the Author and pattern of man, and to man as God's companion and image; to God as loving man unchangeably, and to man as capable of the perfect reciprocation of divine love; to God as constituting man the object of His most complete self-communication, and to man as endowed with the richest aptitude for participation in the divine fulness. Not merely to the triune. God as related to Himself, nor to man in his time-relations to himself, is the coming of Jesus Christ into the world

'Of such a destiny the tree of life in the garden of Eden is the recognition. Says Delitzsch: "There was-for this is the meaning of the tree of life-in Paradise a sacramental means of transferring man without death to a higher stage of physical life."-On Genesis iii. 22, p. 172.

ascribable. It is the original communion of love between God and man, the communion disturbed but not abolished by sin, which anticipates and accounts for the central fact of Christianity. Conformably to the spiritual necessities latent in the unfathomable mystery of this original communion, the Christ appears in the fulness of time; and He appears in order to realize and thus to satisfy love, the love of God to man, the crown of creation, and the yearning of man after God, the absolute complement of man's life. Christological theology has superseded the famous line of Augustine: O felix culpa, quæ talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem!

4. If we look upon the incarnation, the advent of the Son of God in human nature, as having its ground in God's eternal purpose respecting the history and scope of the universe, it will be seen to be not an after-thought, not an appendix devised by divine wisdom to supplement

"If the Redeemer of the world stands in an eternal relation to the Father and to Humanity,-if His person has not merely an historical, not merely a religious and ethical, but also a metaphysical significance,—sin alone cannot have been the ground of His revelation; for there was no metaphysical necessity for sin entering the world, and Christ could not be our Redeemer, if it had been eternally involved in His idea that He should be our Mediator. Are we to suppose that that which is most glorious in the world could only be reached through the medium of sin? that there would have been no place in the human race for the glory of the Only Begotten One, but for sin ?"-Martensen's Dogmatics, p. 260.

Principal Fairbairn teaches definitely the same truth: "The Incarnation is of all acts the act that most becomes God, and so the one we can least conceive as accidental. And therefore, though its special form may be affected by the fact of sin, yet it were mere impertinence to imagine that but for the accident of sin, the universe would have been deprived of its most invincible evidence of grace."-Christ in Modern Theology, P. 477.

a defect in the plan of creation, or to display and glorify punitive justice, or merely to remove the consequences of man's failure. The incarnation does not involve a violent or contra-ideal change either in the original teleology or in the normal historical movement of the world. In purpose and in possibility the birth and history of Jesus Christ antedate both the fall of man and the fall of angels. More than this. It antedates the very beginning of the work of creation. Before the creative word, Let there be light, was spoken, the idea of the Creator respecting the cosmos included its consummation in the fulness of time,' when God would send forth His Son, 'born of a woman.' We are taught that Christ was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times;' that the Father loved the incarnate Son 'before the foundation of the world;' and that 'the Lamb hath been slain from the foundation of the world.' The taproot and the immutable law of the advent is the eternal principle of love, the communion of love in the glory of the tri-personal Godhead.

5. The advent actualized by the history of Jesus Christ was indeed not the pure embodiment of the essence of love, nor were the reciprocal relations between the Godhead and

"Who was foreordained indeed before the foundation of the world,* but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake."-1 Pet. i 20. "Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."-John xvii. 24. Cf. Eph i. 4. Rev. xiii. 8.

*Says Archbishop Leighton: 'Amongst all the works God intended before time, and in time effected, this is the masterpiece that is here said to be foreordained, the manifesting of God in the flesh, for man's redemption "-Works, p 54.